Heiskuja – Outi Heiskanen Lallukan taiteilijakodissa

Georg Grotenfelt: Heiskuja – Outi Heiskanen Lallukan taiteilijakodissa (2021).

Georg Grotenfelt: Heiskuja – Outi Heiskanen Lallukan taiteilijakodissa (2021).

Georg Grotenfelt: Heiskuja – Outi Heiskanen Lallukan taiteilijakodissa (2021).

Heiskuja – Outi Heiskanen Lallukan taiteilijakodissa
    FI 2021 © 2020 Nostalgia Film Ky. P: Georg Grotenfelt.
    D+SC: Georg Grotenfelt. Cin: Jani Ahlstedt, Georg Grotenfelt. S recording: Georg Grotenfelt, Jani Ahlstedt. S design: Sergei Moshlov. ED ass: Jani Ahlstedt. P consultant: Mina Laamo.
    Shot at the artist's residence of Outi Heiskanen at Lallukan taiteilijakoti, Helsinki, 2012–2015.
    Art by Outi Heiskanen, sources:
– Oheistaidekoti / photography: Metti Nordin
– Rauno Träskelin archive / photography: Rauno Träskelin
– EMMA – Espoon modernin taiteen museo / Saastamoisen säätiö / photography: Matti Ruotsalainen, Ari Karttunen / EMMA
– Kansallisgalleria / Nykytaiteen museo Kiasma / SKOP:n taidekokoelma / photography: Pirjo Mykkänen, Petri Virtanen, Jouko Könönen
– Kansallisgalleria / Arkistokokoelmat / Bellinin Akatemian tutkimusretki Par-Kisin ja Par-Iskmenyyn hikoiluluolille (1974)
– HAM – Helsingin taidemuseo / Raimo ja Maarit Huttusen taidekokoelma / photography: Anna Taival, Maija Toivonen, Taru Tuulia Tittonen
    44 min
    Vimeo preview screener viewed on a 4K tv set at home, Lappeenranta, 26 Dec 2020.

AA: Outi Heiskanen (born in 1937), is one of Finland's most highly regarded artists. Her focus is on graphics as a fine art: printmaking, aquatint, etching and drypoint. Her works often convey a mystic atmosphere of a fairy-tale world, frequently presenting animals or animal-human hybrids. Her father was a veterinarian, and childhood memories of domestic animals became an inspiration in her art. She may use a combination technique in which an etching is augmented by aquatint or drypoint. Her exhibitions include collages, installations, sculptures and puppets. She has also created films, photographs, performances and environment art. She is a member of the artist groups Bellini Academy and Record Singers. Heiskanen has created mythologies and legends of her own. She is also an illustrator and has been active as a professor and rector of Uniarts Helsinki's Academy of Fine Arts. She is an Arts Academician since 2004.

Georg Grotenfelt documents four years of Outi Heiskanen's creativity at her residence at the Lallukka Artists's House, with flashbacks to her earlier explorations, starting with a shamanistic movie of the forays of the Bellini Academy artist group in 1974. Heiskanen herself narrates the journey into her artistic world, while creating new works and selling them from home. Her associations run from the Russian yurodivy ("Fool for Christ") to ancient rhymes learn from her itinerant vetarinarian father, still inspiring her works. Horses, cows, dogs, bears and foxes are recurrent figures. An auxiliary army of a thousand spirits can be summoned at will. Heiskanen spices her narrative with Sami joiku (yoik), jokes and wordplay, introduces a nude model and games of patience, cards and chess. We experience the bustle at a vernissage, and the emptiness approaching when the time is up to move out of Lallukka. Grotenfelt ends his movie in visions of eternity, the birth of the stars, gas clouds, a long tunnel, a little baby and the atavistic sound of the black-throated loon.

A candid and memorable portrait documentary.